6/7/2025 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 6/7/2025, By: bigfoot1 Info: Snowshoes took a ride today. No snow on the road until about 11.2k ft (38.68837, -106.28221) but it is pretty intermittent. No traction needed. Cut off some of the switchbacks to avoid the snow, but nothing crazy. Ridge to Boulder is mostly dry, and the ridge to Mama is also dry. |
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6/28/2024 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 6/29/2024, By: QuietBear Info: The entire Baldwin Cirque is in summer conditions. Traverse from Mamma to Boulder is beautiful and a fun class 2 ridge run. The wildflowers are blooming! No significant snow exists along this route. There is an abundance of muddy, slick, and sinking ground at lower elevations, especially near the lakes and willows. The creek is running very strong and Baldwin Creek 4x4 Road (Forest Service Road 277) has a good amount of water running over it in places. Mostly 1-2 inches, but perhaps 8-10 in one spot. Mosquitoes are in full bloom in the forested areas. Getting out of my car for a second resulted in 10-15 intruders. |
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6/28/2023 Route: Baldwin Gulch Loop Posted On: 6/28/2023, By: JasonKline Info: I followed the loop from https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=17134 which began at Baldwin Gulch, ascended the northeast slope of Boulder, traversed to Mamma, traversed the ridge north of Mamma, them descended northeast to Baldwin Gulch. The route was summer conditions except (1) The east side of the ridge north of Mamma still held snow. This was easily avoided by staying on ridge proper or the west side of the ridge. (2) While descending northeast of the north Mamma ridge, there was a brief (100 feet or so) stretch of unavoidable snow at treeline. It was simple enough to walk through the snow safely without any equipment. It was pretty windy from Boulder to the end of the ridge north of Mamma. The descent down to Baldwin Gulch indeed contains sections that are both pretty steep and covered in slick pine needles. It was definitely shorter than returning back over Boulder or descending to the east, but it was slow going and some portions of the descent were unpleasant "class 3 grass." |
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2/25/2023 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 2/25/2023, By: Will_E Info: Tough trail breaking en route to Boulder today. First section of roadwalk was well trenched, I put on snowshoes when I turned onto 279, didn't remove them until 13,100'. Tough trenching most of the way, I found the snow better on the road, I cut a few of the switchbacks, but the snow was so messy I'm not sure it actually saved time. Nice warm day, had it all to myself. |
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6/28/2022 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 6/30/2022, By: mtngoatwithstyle Info: Summer conditions from the Baldwin Creek TH to FR 279 all the way up to the summit. The creek after you go up Baldwin Creek had water running and no way for me to cross it, so I took shoes off and crossed it. Nice way to wake up!. I did not summit short of 200ft due to dark and stormy clouds rolling in. Will be back!. |
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6/5/2022 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 6/6/2022, By: Shooter Info: Summer conditions as well as the ridge to Mount Mamma. This makes for a nice loop. |
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6/19/2021 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 6/19/2021, By: mikemalick Info: Modified East Slopes route. Parked right at entrance to closed 4WD road off 277. Also cut out a bunch of switchbacks and went right up the ridgeline when it made sense. No snow on route at all. |
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11/2/2020 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 11/2/2020, By: Trotter Info: Road is well packed until turnoff at 279 road. About 4-6 inches of snow until you hit the mine, either sugar powder or crusty with sugar under it. Fairly slow going, but traction or flotation won't do much. We semi trenched it. Above the mine, mostly windblown talus. |
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10/11/2020 Route: Mt Mamma Posted On: 10/12/2020, By: angry Info: Loop from Baldwin Gulch - Mt Mamma and ridge to Boulder summit is dry. However, it was snowing on the descent. No summit register. |
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6/6/2020 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 6/6/2020, By: RobLowe Info: W/ Mt Mamma. No snow up Boulder. Some snow on Mamma heading down Baldwin Gulch. Very windy but forecast is better for tomorrow. |
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7/2/2019 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 7/2/2019, By: tjf242424 Info: Hiked from the 2wd parking at the bottom of the Antero road. Basically summer conditions. A few snowfields remain on the upper switchbacks, but no snow equipment necessary. I stuck to the switchbacks going up, with some short snow crossings, but chose to plunge step down some of the snowfields on the descent to eliminate switchbacks. Pretty cruiser day, less than 7 hours to complete. |
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12/9/2017 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 12/10/2017, By: d_baker Info: No summit, but..... Baldwin Gulch is in its usual "winter" time condition with ice flows and packed snow/ice starting at the bottom. An ATV type vehicle, possibly a rubber tracked machine (vs. wheels) went into Baldwin Gulch, but any truck will have a difficult time beyond CR 162. It took us about 40min's to reach the turnoff for the Boulder Mtn route. Following the route description on this site, using the second turnoff from Baldwin Gulch road, just after 279, we found a boot track that aided our hike tremendously. Without this ~2+ mile track, we would not have made it as far as we did. Snow was continuous from Baldwin Gulch rd turnoff, about 8" deep. At the end point of the prior hiker, we continued for roughly another mile, breaking trail in 10-12" of snow, in one windblown area it was shin to knee deep for a short stretch (I'm 6'). Due to poor choice in footwear (me, using summertime hikers vs. using a more appropriate insulated winter boot) and the decision to not bring snowshoes -- with cold feet (me) we made it to about 11,900' with limited time remaining for what we wanted out of our day, so we stopped for lunch then tucked tail for our descent. We tacked it up as a nice lunch with a view & a recon mission with good exercise. |
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5/24/2014 Route: Road 279 + NE ridge Posted On: 5/25/2014, By: CarpeDM Info: I hiked up Boulder Mtn yesterday in the southern Sawatch. Forgot snowshoes, which was a not problem most of the way. But it was brutal for the last nearly a mile and a half up to the mine. At 3.75 miles in, debris from a small avy blocked the road. But a party of jeepers made it over (one had stayed behind, presumably to save the day if they got stuck on the way down). Other than that, the road was pretty clear most of the way. Then, trapdoor postholing began about 5 miles in. Cutting up the ridge at the switchback at about 11,450 would've been the way to go, but it was still brutal bushwhacking through trapdoor snow on the way down - just shorter. I felt the effects of not being at elevation in 6 weeks, and was worried about getting caught up there in the storms, so didn't go to Mt Mamma. Pic 1: Avy debris at switchback at about 11k Pic 2: The postholing begins at about 5 miles in Pic 3: Antero + road Pic 4: Cronin ridge |
